Man shot dead was 37-year-old US citizen, Minneapolis police chief says
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara has said the city authorities know the identity of the man killed by federal officers this morning, but the name is not being released at this time.
He described the person shot dead as a white man, a resident of the city and a US citizen. O’Hara said the victim was 37 years old. Wire services had previously said the man was 51.
O’Hara said that the federal authorities have not provided any details about today’s incident to the police department and city authorities.
Key events
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has posted on X saying: “I told the White House the state must lead the investigation” into the fatal shooting of a man in Minneapolis this morning.
“Let state investigators secure justice. As we process the scene, stay peaceful and give them space. The State has the personnel to keep people safe – federal agents must not obstruct our ability to do so,” he said.
The local and federal authorities have been sharply at odds over the escalated immigration enforcement efforts taking place in the city over the last few weeks, with Minneapolis and Minnesota leaders furious about the unilateral dispatch of aggressive federal agents to the city by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.
Man shot dead was 37-year-old US citizen, Minneapolis police chief says
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara has said the city authorities know the identity of the man killed by federal officers this morning, but the name is not being released at this time.
He described the person shot dead as a white man, a resident of the city and a US citizen. O’Hara said the victim was 37 years old. Wire services had previously said the man was 51.
O’Hara said that the federal authorities have not provided any details about today’s incident to the police department and city authorities.
Open-source analysis of Minneapolis shooting begins
Robert Mackey
As we piece together what happened in Minneapolis on Saturday, where another shooting by federal immigration agents was recorded on video and posted online by witnesses, instant analysis of the images by open-source experts and non-experts has begun.
David Bier, the Cato institute director of immigration studies, shared the distressing video on X.
The video matches the reported location of the shooting mentioned by officials, and shows a man being wrestled to the ground by several law enforcement officers before being shot several times. At least two officers can be seen with weapons in their hands.
Open-source experts have begun to parse the apparent video evidence online, which seemed to capture the sound of an initial shot causing the agents to retreat from the man before one fires at him repeatedly on the ground.
The journalist Eoin Higgins reposted the clip on Bluesky, with suggestion that that one portion of the recording might show that an officer in grey “disarms the man on the ground being beaten – BEFORE shots were fired”.
The Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, is now telling a press conference that his department does not yet know what happened immediately before the shooting.
Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, has just spoken at the press conference that is ongoing in the city.
After Renee Good was shot dead by ICE, he told the agency to “get the fuck out of” the city.
Moments ago at this conference he urged residents to: “Stand with Minneapolis. Stand up for America. Recognize that your children will ask what side you were on. Your grandchildren will ask what you did to act to prevent this from happening again … What did you do to protect your nation?”
He added: “This is not what America is about. This is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue. This administration and everyone involved in this operation should be reflecting. They should be reflecting right now and asking: what exactly are you accomplishing?”
Minneapolis officials plead for calm, tell federal enforcement to leave
The police chief of Minneapolis, Brian O’Hara, has kicked off a press conference by acknowledging that people are angry about the latest fatal shooting by federal law enforcement of a man in the city.
He called on federal personnel in the city to conduct themselves with discipline and humanity.
Then he said that members of the public gathered to protest at the scene of the shooting in south Minneapolis were taking part in an “unlawful assembly”.
“There is a lot of anger and questions around what has happened,” O’Hara said.
And he called for calm and begged the public not to damage the city.
Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, is now talking and we will bring you his remarks asap. He’s calling on Donald Trump to “end this operation” and “take action now to remove these federal agents”.
Anna Betts
In a statement sent to the Guardian, assistant secretary of homeland security Tricia McLaughlin said that at 9.05am local time, “as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis” against a person they said was in the country illegally, who she said was “wanted for violent assault”, “an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.”
McLaughlin said that “the officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted” and that “more details on the armed struggle are forthcoming.”
“Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots” she said, adding: “Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene.”
She added that the man also had “2 magazines and no ID”.
Man shot dead was pronounced dead at the scene, DHS says
The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE and Border Patrol, has just said that the man shot dead by federal immigration enforcement earlier this morning was pronounced dead at the scene.
The federal agency said an agent fired “defensive shots”. It is now characterizing protesters as “rioters”, saying there are about 200 people on the scene in south Minneapolis trying to “obstruct and assault law enforcement”.
Illinois governor JB Pritzker has called for a bipartisan reponse to this shooting from US state governors.
“I am asking my fellow Republican and Democratic Governors across the nation to have a unified response. We must all stand against the lawlessness being inflicted in our states,” he posted on X moments ago.
He then posted: “Masked federal agents in Minnesota just shot and killed another person. We must put a stop to Trump’s ICE. Now. Stop the funding, stop the occupations, stop the killings.”
Mary Moriarty, the top prosecutor of Hennepin county, where Minneapolis is located, has issued a statement saying that her team is working with state law enforcement, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), to coordinate on a response to this shooting.
“The scene must be secured by local law enforcement for the collection and preservation of evidence,” Moriarty said. “We expect the federal government to allow the BCA to process the scene.”
After Renee Good was killed, the FBI at first cooperated with Minnesota law enforcement and then abruptly shut them out and said it would be only a federal investigation. This outraged state and county officials.
After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home.
One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.” Agents elsewhere shoved a yelling protester into a car, the Associated Press reports.
The intersection where the shooting occurred has been blocked off, and border patrol agents are on the scene wielding batons.
Teargas has been deployed and the crack of munitions such as flash-bang grenades used in crowd control can be heard close to the scene of this shooting in south Minneapolis.
Clouds of teargas are floating in a haze above the street, while protesters are not leaving the scene.
A US government source directly briefed on the situation rapidly unfolding in Minneapolis has confirmed reports to the Guardian that the man shot by federal immigration officers this morning was armed.
The source, who cannot be named because they are not authorized to give out details at this time, provided an image of a handgun next to a loaded magazine, connected to the man the Department of Homeland Security is calling a suspect.
“Suspect had a firearm with two magazines,” the source said. “Situation evolving. Will get … more information ASAP.”
The Guardian has not yet been able independently to verifiy this information.
Man shot by federal officers in Minneapolis has died – reports
A 51-year-old man shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis has died, a hospital record obtained by the Associated Press shows.
CNN has also reported that the man shot during the federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis has died this morning. The Minnesota Star Tribune has also reported the man has been killed.
Minnesotans have been protesting against the White House’s decision to flood the relatively small, liberal midwestern city of Minneapolis with federal immigration enforcement personnel in recent weeks.
Those demonstrations have become a daily constant in much greater volume since an ICE officer shot dead resident (and US citizen) Renee Good on 7 January instead of stepping out of the way of her departing car.
At the time there were fears of a things slipping out of control in the city if protests turned into riots or mass law-breaking.
But in fact demonstrations have been fierce but very much in control. Federal officers and agents from ICE officers to the border patrol have drawn outrage for aggressive and sometimes violent tactics against people they are targeting for immigration enforcement but also against protesters and mere bystanders or passersby.
Governor Tim Walz said: “Minnesota is meeting fear and division with decency and generosity.”
The Guardian’s immigration reporter Maanvi Singh said from her experience she had to agree with descriptions of the city as feeling like it is “under siege”.
Minnesota’s governor Tim Walz has called for Donald Trump to end his administration’s aggressive federal immigration enforcement operations in the state the began a few weeks ago and has caused chaos, injury and death.
“I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. This is sickening,” Walz wrote on the X social media platform.
He continued: “The president must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
Minneapolis officials are urgently looking into the multiple reports that federal enforcement has shot a man.
Shooting in Minneapolis
Officials in Minneapolis have received reports of another shooting involving federal law enforcement officers in the city during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown there.
The shooting comes less than three weeks after Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in the city in Minnesota while she tried driving away from a confrontation with officers. The killing sparked protests nationwide and constant protests in Minneapolis since.
City officials said on Saturday morning in a statement that the “shooting involving federal law enforcement” and occurred in the area of West 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue South – and that they are “working to confirm additional details”.
“We ask the public to remain calm and avoid the immediate area,” the statement added.
Governor Tim Walz called for an immediate end to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in the state.
Confirmed details are few at this time so stay with the Guardian live blog and we will bring you the developments as they happen.
